JOSE DE LA ISLA: Brazil, Mexico outraged over U.S. spying

SAN ANGELO, Texas - President Barack Obama has had his hands full since returning from the Group of 20’s summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, in early September.

As he teams gingerly with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, following their accord over Syria disposing of its chemical-weapons stockpile, Obama must now contend with Brazil’s and Mexico’s presidents, Dilma Rousseff and Enrique Peña Nieto, respectively, over National Security Agency spying.

Glenn Greenwald, the journalist responsible for disclosing many of fugitive Edward Snowden’s leaks of secret NSA documents, revealed in a Rio de Janeiro newscast Sept. 1 that the United States had spied on presidents Rousseff and Peña Nieto.

Thomas Shannon, the U.S. ambassador to Brazil, was summoned the next day to meet with foreign minister Luiz Alberto Figueiredo over the alleged NSA spy program. In Russia, Rousseff indicated Obama’s assurances did not satisfy her, and Obama agreed to give a more complete explanation.

The Mexico City daily El Universal reported Sept. 5 that a Mexican official in Russia with Peña Nieto had confirmed that the Mexican president had a phone conversation with Obama about the matter. In it, Obama agreed to a “deep” investigation, as requested by the Mexican president.

Peña Nieto also reportedly said that if spying occurred during his presidential campaign and before his December inauguration, “it’s an action outside the law.”

Rousseff was reported to be furious. After meeting with her and Peña Nieto on the G-20 sidelines, Obama told Reuters that the U.S. was dealing with “a source of tension.”

Greenwald’s spying reports continue. On Sept. 7, he disclosed in the Brazilian newspaper O Globo that the NSA has been engaged in an extensive spying program in Latin America.

How and what Obama reports back to Rousseff and Peña Nieto could be further affected by a Sept. 14 ruling on a motion brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Media Freedom and Access Information Clinic at Yale Law School.

Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has asked the Obama government to make public its opinions of Section 215 of the Patriot Act concerning the court’s legal interpretations about authorization of the type of spying Snowden is leaking.

The government has until Oct. 4 to identify relevant opinions to be released and to begin reviewing them for declassification.

The underlying problem with the Patriot Act is about what passes as “relevant” and what makes up a “tangible” record of terrorism by anti-state wrong-doers.

Officials’ new frowning arises because virtually any records, including those held by banks, doctors and phone companies, are subject to inclusion, regardless of whether the person or the activity is connected to terrorism. This is analogous to a man with a fishing pole getting a fishing license, then finding out he’s using a trawler and a net the size of the Pacific.

The court decision can have a bearing on what the Obama administration reports to Mexico and Brazil. Obama and the NSA are terribly compromised before the two friendly targeted countries.

So far, the Brazilian senate is spurred to consider offering asylum to Snowden and is delaying the purchase of a $4 billion fighter aircraft from Boeing. Rousseff may cancel a planned visit to Washington in October.

In separate and recent press conferences here, Mexico’s attorney general, Jesús Murillo Karam, and its ambassador to the U.S., Eduardo Medina Mora, said Peña Nieto’s government was awaiting an investigation report from the Obama administration.